Plugging away to improve the vast outback Great Artesian Basin

For the past 14 years, there has been a concerted effort to plug holes in the outback under a joint government and landowner-funded program known as the Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative (GABSI).

The water savings are massive and in many places the water pressure is on the rise, but now the program is coming to an end and the job is far from finished.

Most of the natural recharge happens on the eastern side of the basin, especially further north where the climate is wetter, while the majority of the natural discharge points are on the western side.

Travis Gotch has spent the past 15 years mapping 5,000 springs in South Australia.

He has worked his way through about 90 per cent and, despite the isolation, says he is not bored yet.

"Every time you come out you learn something new. You see something new and you see something that just kicks you and says 'wow'," he said.

"I'm yet to reach the limit of my wow factor with the springs."

Mr Gotch has been working on Anna Creek Station, west of Lake Eyre, the world's biggest cattle property and home to some of the most significant artesian outlets, including Strangways Springs.

"They (early graziers) ran a wool-scouring mill about 500 metres from where we are now off of the discharge of one of these springs [but] there's not enough flow for that to happen now," he said.

It is his job to identify the springs that are most at risk and Strangways definitely falls into that category.

Of the 400 springs around the area, only 60 are still flowing and water pressure to those is continuing to decline.

But Mr Gotch has an optimistic outlook.

"GABSI is one of the best programs to have been run at a federal and state level. The program of capping the bores has seen on numerous sites on this part of the Great Artesian Basin has seen massive recovery in the springs and we've seen springs that were previously not flowing are flowing again," he said.